kanji are eff'ing tough

So the last couple of days I have been on a kick to buy Kanji helper devices. For those of you not in "the know," Kanji are the symbols you see in Japanese writing. Seperate from the syllabic alphabets, or kanas, each Kanji is a pictograph which can be read multiple ways depending which other Kanji or kana surround it. It is commonly said that you need to learn at least 2000 to be able to fluidly read Japanese. I know about 300 right now, but I still can barely read anything on the street or in books without the kana written next to the Kanji.

Each Kanji is unique and comprised of anywhere from 1 to 14 or more strokes. They get extremely complex and are easily the hardest part about learning Japanese.

Anyways, I picked up a bunch of grade school Kanji work books at the depaato the other day. They are fun and have helped me learn a few new Kanji already in just a couple days. My favorite exercise is when the sample sentence is "I am four years old."

It makes me feel smart.

The other thing I picked up today were Kanji flashcards for the first 500 Kanji taught in school. I am currently going through them to see which ones I know and which ones I dont. Each card has the Kanji, common readings, definition and common compound words using other Kanji. This is all fit in to a nice neat, 2 inch by 3 inch card. I love it.

In class I learn 6 new Kanji every day. This is an insane rate which I have never before experienced with Kanji. The fastest I learned before was maybe 10 in a 2 week span, but I am enjoying the faster pace, it actually makes the Kanji stick more, somehow.

INTERLUDE

I was in the office waiting to talk to Tanaka yesterday while he was on the phone. He kept taking photos of me with a digital camera, which struck me as odd. At first I assumed he wanted me for his book of memories or something, so I vainly posed. The truth was far from a book of memories, although it was, ironically, far more memorable.

"I have seen a show on television where people take photos and ghosts appear in the photos next to people. On the show they would talk to the people and see if the ghosts were real or not. Do you have such shows in America?"

"Uhhhh yeah...on the sci-fi channel I think, its mostly hoaxes I think."

"Well, they use film to see the ghost, so I am wondering if this digital camera I got will also be able to see the ghosts. If I can take a photo of someone with a ghost, perhaps I will go on this show to talk about my ghost."

Gotta love Tanaka!

EPILOGUE

I bought the Matrix Revolutions last night because I really wanted to see that cool battle between Neo and Smith again. Unfortunately, I remembered one key fact as I was watching it.

The Matrix Revolutions fucking sucks.

So does Matrix Reloaded.
karl.arthur

i can't eat.

i can't sleep.

sorry for the lack of updates. i've been drunk.incapacitated.the internet was down. take your pick. here comes the WORDS.

Saturday afternoon I went to Jissen Women's University in Tokyo, Japan. The trip was undertaken by the American Students of KCP International.

The University trip kinda sucked. It was saturday, so the school was out of session. I saw more high school girls getting tours than college students. Also because of this, most of the classrooms were locked, so we couldnt even get a proper tour (though I just fucking know they unlocked them for those high schoolers.) I spent most of the days taking long range photos of Andy from across campus with my new camera, which is still new enough that I treat it like a toy. I was also dissapointed by the fact that a Japanese college is pretty much exactly the same as an American one. I don't know what I expected, but I hoped to see at least one samurai or something walking around.

After we got our weak "tours" we all went to the on campus curry restaraunt. For those of you who don't know, curry is a spicey sauce that is poured over rice, and often mixed with fish, pork, vegetables or anything you can imagine. It is an Indian food and tastes delicious. Curry bars are one of the most popular type of restaraunt in Tokyo, for good reason. Me and Sanjiv had been in the same tour group and we ditched it during lunch, cause it sucked. The guides were really interesting, unless you engaged them in conversation or listened to them talk.

After lunch we went to a meeting room where all the Japanese and American students (about 40 people over all) played charades. Japanese people LOVE playing charades in classes, I have played this game with every Japanese teacher I have ever had. Me and Sanjivs charade was "nuts cracker." We asked Tanaka if it was a typo and he corrected it to "nutcracker." This is worth noteing because Tanaka then told us to never reveal the true meaning of "nuts" to any of the Japanese students, because the Japanese-American student relationship would be destroyed if such a nefarious word got out.

After charades we all took photos and exchanged numbers, which we had been expressly forbidden to do.

(L-R): Me, Sanjiv, Tanaka, Karen, Andy

All the KCP and Japanese students

Me, Sanjiv, Andy and Karen then went shopping in Tachikawa. We all bought something at this cheap clothing store. I managed to get two sweet jackets for only 3900 yen each. Trust me, this is a fucking amazing deal in Tokyo.

That night me, Mike and Ryan (another US student whose intro is better left unsaid) went out to Shinjuku. I wanted to meet up with Karen, Elijah, Patrick and Stephen, but the meet up fell through and it was me, ryan and mike drinking from 9 until 4 in the morning.

Patrick - An older KCP student, he is in level 4. He has some of the dryest humor I know, and is one of the few kids who you can carry on an intelligible conversation with on any topic. Also of note, is that he programmed the "new" version of Windows Media Player (remember when it stopped being a box and became pretty a few years ago? That was patrick.) He has been in Japan almost a year and goes home in December when I do.

Stephen - A self-described otaku (obsessed nerd), Stephen hails from Jaimaica. He loves manga and anime, and is the one who introduced me to Book - Off (which I won't spoil here, its an entry for a rainy day.) He likes to drink and is always down to do stuff. He is my age.

We went to a 300 yen bar that I had been introduced to be Ai after the Oasis concert last weekend. We arrived at around 9:30. Each drink cost 300 yen, and we racked up an 8000 yen bill 2 hours later. We then went to the Hub, an english styled chain pub in Japan that KCP students often frequent. I drank 3 Long Island Iced Teas there, and I was DONE. We stayed there a few hours and had fun talking to a group of 6 Japanese 30-somethings who loved talking to American kids, and teaching us bad words. Hetarai is the equivalent of 'fuck you' in Japanese, I was told.

We stumbled out of the bar around 3:30 and discovered all the local manga kissas were full. I noticed the Kanjii for open all night and we fell down the stairs to a Japanese diner. This diner was cool because it was traditional-styled, and there were no chairs, only tables directly on the floor. Many Japanese kids were there and more stuff happened, but I am not sure what because I passed out on the conviently close floor.

I do, however, remember one Japanese kid who only knew the phrases "YOU ARE MY BEST FRIEND!!!" and "ALLRIGHT!!!", which he kept screaming at us as he slapped up numerous high fives.

I woke up at 5:30 and we took the first train home. I woke up at 4:30 Sunday afternoon and feel asleep at 10:00 that night.

Did you know that Korean people actually eat dog? I didn't.
.karl.arthur.

cambodians speak french

I had an extremely long and witty post written up about my adventure last weekend, but this blogging softwar won't let me cut and paste from Word. I am going to try to figure a way around it soon, because I am not about to retype a 2000 word entry.

Took my new camera out for a spin around Tokyo today. I have lots of cool pictures, and I will post a bunch tomorrow. Hopefully it will work out better than the last photo post, which I know came out shitty.

Tomorrow I will also be able to post about my trip to the Women's University, which I am taking with my class. I can guarentee lots of fun stories, and I will be sure to take a bunch of pictures to share with my online pals!

I hung out with Elijah and Ian tonite. Ian is from Lodon, and was in Japan visiting. 5 years ago he taught English here with Elijah and hasn't been back since then. If I ever get to post the story about last weekend, there is more in there about him.

I'll let you guess which one of the two guys to the left is from England and which one is from Virginia.

After a quick drink we all walked to Yoyogi from Shinjuku, a healthy distance, to go to a small Cambodian restaraunt. This was my first time eating Cambodian, and it was the spiciest food I've ever eaten. There were only 3 choices on the menu, and each choice was a series of courses everyone shares. Our meal consisted of 6 or 7 courses that were continually brought out over the course of 2 hours. They included spicy beef salads, spicy shrimp balls, spicy shrimp soup, spicy eggs based fried rice, etc. The word of the day is spicy.

Afterwards we walked back to Shinjuku and I headed home early. I have to get up early for the women's university visit and I didnt feel like staying at a manga kissa and only getting a few hours of sleep.

For the rest of the post I'll briefly describe how my school works.

I go to KCP International School. It's located in Shinjuku Gyoenmae in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo is not only a city, but a prefecture, similar to a state in the United States.

There are about 900 students at the school. 50% are Korean, 30% are Chinese and about 20% are from other countries, such as the states, canada, jamaica, mexico, etc. In my own class there are 3 Americans, 11 Koreans and 8 Chinese, so I am definately in the minority there. The classes themselves are taught only in Japanese, with no intermediary language such as English. I attend the afternoon session which goes from 1:30 to 4:45 monday to friday. There is a 15 minute break at 3:00, which most students use to smoke ( I don't smoke.)

There are 8 levels of Japanese study in the program. At level 6 you should be able to attend a Japanese college, so if you can manage to make it through all 8 levels you will be fluent in Japanese and able to live and work here fluidly.

The fun thing about this program is since everyone is all pretty novice at Japanese, you communicate with your classmates at about a fifth grade level. Doing this every day, day in day out, eventually has you thinking like a fifth grader, and assuming all your classmates have the intelligence of fifth graders, as well. It makes for a very raucus classroom environment, and classes are often rip roaring fun!

I would recommend the program highly for anyone interested in Japanese study.

I am going to the Gundam museum sunday!
~karl arthur

never wear white after labor day

no pictures tonight, sorry, but i just got a new camera and i havent gotten around to using it yet.

today was labor day in japan. to me, all that meant was no classes, since i didnt find out it was labor day until a few hours ago. i thought it was funny symbols on the calendar day.

nothing much happened. nao was still sick so i didnt get to do things to her today, which sucked. sanjiv woke up sick and stayed in bed all day, which sucked. dave never came home last night, so he was MIA all day, which sucked. elijah hung out with noriko all day, which sucked (although he did offer to attempt a gorilla gauntlet (elijah desperately wants to try this, zach.)) Andy woke up early and left, so my only hope was to meet up with him.

I left for shinjuku, the main hub of my tokyo life, about 2 oclock. I didnt realize until I was on the train I was wearing a black hoodie and black dickies, making me look like a dick. Oh well, its labor day!

In shinjuku I looked at gadgets all afternoon. There are tons of cool stores that sell cameras and phones and all sorts of things. The way these stores are set up is bazaar style, with dozens of replica fake phones littered on stands right next to, or sometimes on, the streets. Imagine those hollow fakes we have in the states only so good you mistake them for the real ones, and in every possible color combination for every kind of electronics ever. Its fun to just walk around and play with the hundreds of cell phones set up everywhere, and its not hard to waste an afternoon doing this.

Since it was labor day the streets were shut down for street performers. The usual crap we have in the states, but one event in particular is worth recounting.

Right outside the shinjuku eki (train station), hundreds and hundreds of people were crammed around a van with tinted windows. Intrigued I tried to figure out what they were looking at, but couldnt. It was at this point I realized no one else could, either. Yes, thats right, hundreds of people were staring in to a van that no one could see inside, just to see what everyone else was looking at. This behaviour lasted for all the 2 hours I walked around by myself, since I would walk by the station often and see people pushing each other out of the way for a better look at the 'mystery van.'

I met up with Andy at 7 and he helped me pick out a new camera. I got a Casio Exilim and it is the fucking best camera I've ever had. Well I guess that last part is obvious, why would I buy a camera that was worse than my old one?

Andy and I ate in kabuki-cho, the red light district. We found a really awesome restaraunt which served traditional food dirt cheaply. The tables are set up about a foot above the ground, but underneath them is a pit to put your feet. The result is that you are sitting on ground, with the perspective of such, but you dont have to cramp your legs underneath you, which is nice. We got a little locker for our shoes, and were given slippers to wear. I dont know how I am going to go back to having to wear shoes in restaraunts in the states.

Like I said, pretty uneventful day. After this we rode the train home and I played with my new camera. Its pretty awesome.
.karl.arthur

funny books and homelessness

Anyone out there who knows me personally knows that I am a huge comic book nerd. Not in the sense that I saw Spider-man 2 5 times (I didn't) or that I have some retarded Superman tattoo (I don't.) I am a huge comic book nerd in that I buy about 300 dollars worth of comic books every month when I was in the states. This being so, I am going to devote this entry to the manga trade in Japan.

Manga, for those who have been living under a rock, is the Japanese comic book art form. When adapted to the screen it's called anime. Before I came to Japan, I despised both of those things. Not only because I thought they were stupid, but because I hated the image that everyone who likes Japanese culture is a nerd who reads manga porn. However, after getting here I realize that manga is far different than I realized (although a ton of it is still porno like I thought.)

Manga begins its life in huge weekly magazines. These are the size of magazines in the states, only about 500 pages thick. Each publisher of manga has their own magazine published each week containing their new stories, and dozens comes out every week. Each magazine can contain anywhere from 15 to 30 stories or more. The paper is basic newsprint, and its published in black and white to keep the huge weekly anthologies cheap. The paper changes colors so you can tell where one story starts and another begins. These anthologies are extremely cheap, only about 250 yen for each issue. These magazines, being so cheap, are often thrown away after use and are generally not kept. Homeless men in Tokyo will search garbage bins for used manga magazines and set up huge displays of them for sale on the side of the street.

The stories themselves run a wide range of topics. Comedy, romance, action, sci-fi, fighting, sports and every other genre you can think of. Unlike in the states, where there are only sci-fi or superhero comics, with maybe a handful of other topics being covered every year, if at all. Everyone reads manga. Old, young, girls, boys, nerds, hipsters, rich, poor. Everyone in Japan reads manga, not just male nerds like in the states (I myself, am one of those.)

Seeing as how these giant "jump" magazines (as they are sometimes called) are such low quality, how do Japanese people, who pride themselves on material possessions, keep up a library of their favorite stories? With the manga digests. These smaller books are most likely the ones you are familiar with if you have seen manga before, and are the only way manga is sold in the states.

The manga digest is about half the size of the jump magazine and is printed on high quality white paper, with black ink. They contain up to 10 or so installments of your favorite manga storyline, all in one book! These digests are sold for around 500 yen.

Aside from the upgrade in printing quality, there are also other differences between the digests and the jump magazines. The digests feature dust jackets, with full color designs. They also usually have a few pages in the front with full color glossy paper, sometimes introducing the story, bringing a reader up to date, or even having special digest-only mini-stories. They are high-quality books and perfect for putting on a bookshelf. The Japanese people keep these digests in perfect condition, and used bookstores that sell each volume for around 100 yen each used can easily be mistaken for new books.

Both the jump magazines and digests are sold everywhere in Japan. Convenience stores, record stores, news stands, and especially in train stations. Each train platform usually has at least one kiosk that sells food, drink, magazines and manga. The jump magazines are usually piled 15 or so high in front of the person behind the counter, almost blocking them from view. The jump magazines usually have covers of cute girls smiling or posing in bikinis, which have nothing at all to do with the content of the manga, besides maybe a few pictures of the girl on the first page of the magazine.

Like I said before, manga is read by everyone in Japan, and is considered a main stream hobby like reading a novel or watching a movie. There is no negative stigma like in the United States. I feel this is for 2 main reasons. One, the manga is kept cheap. 250 yen for a 500 page book of stories or 400 yen for a digest with 10 "issues" of your favorite comic book. This compares to 3 dollars an issue in the united states and canada for only 22 pages of story, and 20 dollars for a complilation of 7 or 8 issues. The second reason, and the more important one, is that manga appeals to all genres. Girls have just as much manga written for them as guys do, older people have just as much written as younger people do, etc. There is no 'skewing' of the medium heavily in any one direction, making it inclusive to everyone.

Oh, and yes there is manga porn. A lot of it. A whole lot of it. And its considered normal and mainstream as well, which many people in the united states can't comprehend. These adult books are stored right next to the rest of the manga, and not kept away or hidden. However, the vast majority of the manga is non-pornographic stories. And, keeping with what I just said above, there is lots of manga porn for men AND women. Women like porn, too!







I think I need a guillotine to get her off my mind.
karl.arthur

just when I think I'm out.....

OK the last post turned out even worse that I thought. Seriously, we can fake a moon landing, but we can't get good blog'ing software these days? Thats BS. Oh, and I hate the word blog. So, for the sake of my own OCD like tendancies to have neat entries, you're getting a bonus entry tonite, but dont forget to check out the pictures, either.

It has been brought to my attention recently that people are actually reading this, which excites me. If you are, drop me an email at karl.arthur@ezweb.ne.jp with things you want to see on the journal, or things I've written about you would want to see, I'm open to suggestions.

They just came out with Christmas Qoo at the depaato (department store in japanese.) Readers of the blog know my thoughts on normal Qoo, and I couldnt be happier that Qoo is choosing to embrace the Christmas Spirit.

Speaking of Christmas, since no one cares about J-Dawg in Japan, Christmas is the biggest date holiday of the year. It is considered a guarenteed night to get some, and if you are single you just stay home. Nao told me this right before asking if I was staying over Christmas break. I'm not. Fuck.

So the garbage is piling up in my room. The reason for this is I am too stupid to throw it out, and too lazy. Japan has the most intensive recycling program in the world. You must seperate your trash in to the following piles:
Newspaper
Magazines
Burnables
Non-Burnables
Cans
Bottles
Plastics

To boot, there is no 'default' bin, like in the states, since none of the above would work for any garbage. So this results in most American students having huge piles of trash in their room, for fear of punishment if they are caught dump and running in the morning. The other alternative would be to seperate out everything, but I think it would be less confusing to solve the puzzle cube from Hellraiser.

The people of Japan, however, strictly follow these recycling rules. I have yet to see one Japanese person place a piece of trash in the wrong bin, and there is barely barely ever even one piece of stray garbage anywhere, even in the streets. This confuses me since most places do not contain garbage bins, and me and my buddies have searched for over an hour trying to find an appropriate bin for trash downtown, yet you never see any Japanese person carrying a piece of refuse.

Where the fuck are these people hiding their trash?!

What you see if what you get, and you ain't seen nothing yet.
karl.arthur

Japan in 22,000 words or less (part 1)

Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit. Holy Effing S.
This blog software sucks ass, it took me 2 hours to post up these pictures, it is the worst ever. Last pictures only post for a while. Tomorrow I will chronicle my weekend, maybe, if I still remember it. Alcohol, Shibuya, Kissa's, Kisses, Oasis, Wrestling and too many Chinese whores to count.

All of these photos were taken on my cell phone, by me. This post was originally twice as many pictures, but like I said, this software sucks, so later in the week maybe. If you can only see a sliver of a photo or if its cut halfway or whatever, just click on it and it will pop up full size in a new window. Sorry for the hastle, its not my fault, I'm just the monkey with the typewriter.

From the top:
1. Lee Jae Joon, my best Korean Buddy
2. The hallway at my school which is always clogged with Chinese and Korean smokers, in the foreground is David
3. Jontay Kim, a Korean business man in my class, he bought us all dinner and drink for 4 hours one night in Shin-Okubo
4. Ai, the girl I went to go see Oasis with
5-6. Two pictures of the subway system in Tokyo
7. One of the many eye glass cleaning stations on the streets in Shinjuku
8. Yoko Hukomoto, one of my teachers
9. A ramen bar
10. Me and Terry playing in an arcade
11. Mike on the subway
12. Harajuku at night, the trendiest shopping area in Japan, I buy hats there because they are the only thing I can afford at all. I got a sick vintage Beastie Boys mesh hat for 950 yen saturday night. You are fucking jealous.
13. One of the many funny cars in Tokyo. This was taken in Kokubunji where I live
14. A Japanese arcade, note the cute girls
15. Akihabara, the electronics district in Tokyo
16. The office at my school
17. One of the many Xbox 360 kiosks set up all over Tokyo. Me and Dave found this one while a Japanese pro wrestling event was going on inside an arena, they had forgotten to take them down so we played for half an hour.
18. A designer T-shirt shop in Harajuku. All the t-shirts revolved around the store as you can see in the midground in the picture. The least a shirt cost was 5100 yen, about 45 dollars.
19. Andy playing one of the many crazy arcade games
20. Tomohisa Tanaka, the english interpreter for my school and the quirkiest Japanese guy I know
21. The view from my window
22. Andy, Mike and Sanjiv walking home from school.

i-fucking-ma

Tonights post is coming to you from a manga kissa. I wrote about them in a previous post. As I was writing the previous sentence an extremely drunk japanese girl came in to my booth and turned on my light, then shut my door. I couldnt tell if she wanted me to follow her or was trying to be a jerk. I can feel her passing out against our mutual wall though as I type this (shes in the next booth over.)

Fuck! While I was writing that previous paragraph, a kissa-in (kissa employee) came down to tell me he got the phone charging station working again. However, we then discovered that the plug that I need was being used, and theres no way to tell when the person using it will return to retrieve his phone. Fuck! I really really wanted to call Nao (maybe its better I don`t, I`m drunk.)

No photos tonight, but I 100% promise that by Sunday there will be an all photo post with at least 20 pictures of japanese life with captions. Boy Scout`s Honor.

Tonight I was supposed to go see Oasis with Ikuko in Yoyogi, but she had to cancel last second. She sent her friend Ai in her place. Ai is cuter than Ikuko and a party animal, I am almost glad Ikuko cancelled. Wait, I am glad. Glad.

Glad.

Oasis kinda sucked live. I was far away, and they played a short set, an hour I would guess. Sounds like a long time, but there was no opener and the tickets cost me 7000 yen apiece, about 65 dollars. Liam Gallagher, the main singer, acted like a dick the whole time and walked off stage without even waving before the drums rang out on the final song. His brother Noel and the rest of the band, however, waited and waved to the fans, and threw some things to them. Plus the songs Noel sang sounded 10x better than when Liam sang, too much fucking smoking and Jack Daniels, I think, his voice was all raspy and weak. So to conclude, Oasis would be much better if they kicked out Liam Gallagher. Again.

Afterwards me and Ai went to eat at T.G.I.Fridays in Shibuya. This was odd because the menu was exactly the same as the US restaraunt, no Japanese tilt. I think it should be called T.G.I.Kinyoobis though, friday in japanese. Thank God it`s Kinyoobi!

After that we went to a bar in Kabuki-cho where everything cost 300 yen. The host made sure to wave his hand over his head at every beam to indicate I should watch my head, even though the beams were a good 8 or 9 inches above my head. Ai`s friend Kana joined us, completely yopparai (drunk.) Ai told her to show me her great kanji writing skills, and she wrote the kanji (the fancy japanese characters) for "I want to have sex with you right now." I decided not to take her up on the offer, I`m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with how I feel about Nao now. Nao now. I`ve been waiting to write that since she was introduced.

Somehow I missed my train, I`m not sure why, but maybe I did it subconciously because I hate the night commute, and it`ll be easier in the morning.

I can hear the girl in the next booth snoring and....yup! falling off her bed, so I think thats my signal to sign off. Until next time, keep your friends close and your sake closer.
-karl arthur

wednesday nights for the ladies

Short post tonight, sorry, but I got home late and I need to sleep! Tomorrow I think I will do an all picture post, and spend tomorrow getting good shots from around Tokyo.

Yesterday morning I was awaken by a large earthquake. This would be my third since coming to Japan.

In Japan all the toilet seats are heated and spray water at your butt. Some toilets play the sound of water running while you take a shit. Few toilets come stocked with toilet paper.

In Japan every wedenesday night is ladies night at the movies, they get in at a highly
discounted price. This price is still higher than what most theatres cost in the US.

Tonight I saw In Her Shoes with Nao. As it was ladies night, the audience was primarily women aged 18-35. By primarily I mean I could literally count the number of men in attendence, out of about 500 people, on my fingers. In Her Shoes is a hollywood movie,and was shown with subtitles in japanese, while maintaining the original english language sound track. The subtitles were ridiculously off at times, and Japanese people often laughed at unintended jokes made by the subtitles. I laughed with them really hard so they all thought I could fully understand Japanese, and it made me feel smart.

The movie was a chick flick, and the sea of women around me nearly drowned me in their tears, the sniffles were overwhelming. Luckily for me, I have a cold and their sniffles drowned out my own. Afterwards me and Nao hung around Shinjuku for a few hours doing what young people do when they are out on the town.

The smallest bill in Japan is 1000 yen, around US 9 or 10 bucks. Everything else is coinage below it.
~karl arthur

best laid plans.....

My first missed post yesterday hurt for two reasons. It made my self made goal to have a new post every day broken within the first week, and two, it delayed the Edo Tokyo Museum post another day (don't worry its coming in this post, finally!) However, I don't feel I should get blamed, the internet in my entire boarding house went down for over a day. I guess I could have gone to an internet cafe to get the job done, but I really didnt feel like paying to make a post that would have been rushed.

In order to regain faith in my growing readership, today's post will be longer than usual.

Did you know most Japanese people rarely use their cell phones to talk on? It is mainly used as an e-mailing device. My friend Yoko told me when she visited Canada she was shocked to see people on the streets talking in to their cell phones.

Last Saturday I visited the Edo Tokyo Museum. The actual building the museum is located in is incedible. It is a huge 4 or so story building lifted off the ground about 80 feet by 4 mammoth support legs. Jutting out from the middle is a huge red escalator you take up to the very top. It is probably the largest escalator I will ever be on, and had multiple sections where it would flatten out, then continue to rise.

Before we even stepped in to the museum we were awestruck. And, finally, heres the we. I present my 3 globetrotting buddies, Sanjiv, Karen and Andy, pictured left to right. I chose the artsy photo I took because I want this web journal to have some fucking class.

Underneath the museum in the huge pavillion, every wall was lined with umbrella holders. When you placed the umbrella in the holder a clamp latched around the handle and you took out a key, securing the umbrella. There were thousands of such holders. Considering that many Japanese people simply throw away and buy a new umbrella every time it rains, I am constantly amazed at the care they take for umbrellas at every business in Japan.

After finally reaching the top of the museum my class (this was for a class trip) was split in to groups of 6. Each group was assigned an English speaking interpreter to give a tour. My group was myself, Andy, Sanjiv, Karen, Mike, Dave and Terry. Dave jumped in to our group because all the other groups were full of herbs. Oh yeah, before I forget, new introductions:

Karen - From San Fransisco, Karen is by far the coolest female at my school. She has graduated college, majoring in graphic design, and is here to help her career by learning Japanese. She is very down to earth and thinks I have awesome taste in music, so I like her a lot.

Mike - Mike is an 'otaku' (obsessed fan of nerdery in Japanese), but manages to overcome it by being an extremely cool, smart and nice guy. He is always down to do stuff and enjoys looking at my Gundam models (I am also obsessed with nerdery.)

Terry - Dresses like an old school B-boy and one of the best at Japanese in our little group. He has many Japanese friends and has visited the country before. He enjoys karaoke. A lot.

Everyone up to speed? Good.

Our interpreter was by far the best. She was dressed in a traditional kimono and spoke the best english. She also spent extra time to say everything once in Japanese as well, to help us with our Japanese. Her name was Yumiko.

The museum contained many ordinary museum things, like scrolls, artifacts, etc. By far the coolest aspect, however, were the dozens of dioramas set up. Each one depicted a town or palace from the Edo period of Japanese history. This period was when the Shoguns ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867.

The Shoguns palace, pictured at right, was packaged with an awesome story, courtesy of Yumiko. Unfortunately I forgot the names and dates of those involved, but it is still an amazing story, even if I fuck up a few details (so please don't email me telling me I fucked up, if i do.) One lord was visiting the Shogun's palace and a second kept mocking him. The first tried to keep his cool, but felt his honor had been pushed too far by the taunting insults, after they happened many times. Drawing his sword he attacked the insulter, but was stopped before any harm came to either. However, because he drew a sword in the Shogun's palace he was ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) to maintain his honor. He did so willingly. His samurai, 47 in number, were left masterless ronin. These ronin plotted to avenge their masters death and one night stormed the palace. They killed the lord responsible for the taunts, as well as all his men. Succeeding in their mission, they had the popularity and support of the public behind them and could have escaped punishment. However, without their master and with no further missions in life, all 47 commited seppuku on the lawn of the Shogun's palace (in the section pictured above.)

They commited suicide rather than live with out purpose, you've really gotta admire that. Yumiko then commented how strange it was to her that Western culture demonizes suicide, when it is often the show of ultimate dedication to a cause. She just couldn't comprehend how people who were willing to do anything for their ideals, would stop short of death, when it is the final show of commitment. Her facial expressions and voice showed her own belief in those statements.

The tour lasted about another 30 minutes, but that story, along with Yumiko's reaction to a few US students being disgusted by suicide, was by far one of the best moments I've had so far.

However, I did get some more pictures of some cool dioramas, so here's some photos of my favorite, a busy Edo period sea port (check out the people in the back to get an idea of just how huge these set ups were): (Left to right): Sanjiv, Terry, Mike, Karen, Karl, Andy, Dave, Yumiko

I picked up some sweet Hokusai (Japanse artist who does the one wave painting you all know) postcards on the way out. If you get one in about a week it means you are special.

Tomorrow I go to a Japanse movie theatre for the first time with Nao. We're seeing some stupid chick flick with Cameron Diaz, so I better at least get some crazy Japanese stuff to report out of it, or maybe a few kisses.

Gundam club starts next week!
~karl arthur

kids really like totoro

So i guess i lied. I forgot to buy the cable for my digital camera, so the post about the Edo Tokyo Museum will come tomorrow, hopefully. I did, however, manage to get some pictures from todays antics taken using my phone on to my computer, so some pictures are better than none, right?

Today I had a date with a girl name Nao (pronounced like 'now.') Nao is a waitress at the extremely popular burger place Freshness Burger. Freshness Burgers are everywhere in Japan, my school has at least 3 within a 10 minute walk. I met her at Freshness Burger last week when she took my order. She was wearing a New York Yankees hat and I commented that I lived in New York State. It turned out she spoke fluent english, and we talked about something that didnt matter, because I forget what it was.

Anyways, we met up at Alta at 2:00. Alta is a store which boasts the largest TV screen in Tokyo on its face, which probably makes it the largest in the world, I'm not sure. It takes up pretty much an entire building face and plays popular music videos and commercials. If you saw Lost in Translation you may remember a dinosaur walking across it in one scene (although that may have been Shibuya, its the same idea.) Alta is a popular meeting place, and is always crowded with kids meeting, or kids just hanging out under the giant TV.

After a quick lunch, I asked her to take me to a local shrine, since I had not had any time to look at any yet in depth. Lucky for me, there was one in Shinjuku just down the street. The entrance was between two huge buildings, and almost seems surreal, crammed in to the hustle and bustle of downtown Shinjuku (Tokyos busiest area.) The shrine was in the middle area created by buildings on all four sides, with the alleyways between them the only exit or entrance. On this particular day there were many festivities going on at the shrine. Dozens of merchants had set up shop in the aisles leading in to the shrine, selling everything from kimonos to antiques to old photographs. I purchased a few photographs of japanese school children and soldiers, taken in the 1940s, for my friend Paul in the States. Everyone had their goods lined up on the ground, and it had a bazaar type atmosphere. I saw one American there take an antique sai that was for sale and mock ninja moves to a girl to try and gain her fancy. I now realize whyJapanese people do not particularly like Americans.

Also occuring at the shrine that day was a children's ceremony. The children's ceremony, Nao explained to me, happened when a Japanese child turned 3, 5 or 7. They are dressed in traditional clothing and brought to the shrine to be blessed. I saw a little girl who must have been 3 and a little boy dressed in ceremonial kimonos. Both were being bombarded by relatives for pictures and appeared to do more posing for proud parents then anything else. I had Nao take the picture of one of the children for me, since I was afraid I would be taken for a pervert if I asked myself. There are many, many perverted men in Japan, ask any Japanese woman. Luckily, the mother was more than happy to allow us to take a photo, and the boy seemed ecstatic to be able to interact with a foreigner.

We exited the shrine, and as we left we looked back to see the boy and his friends waving good bye to us, grinning like chesire cats.

A short subway ride landed us in Ikebukoro at about 4:30. Ikebukoro is a popular shopping destination, and since it was Sunday was packed full of people. Sundays are the busiest day of the week in Japan, and stores are usually open later, not earlier like in the states or canada. We immediately went to Sunshine City, a huge mall complex with a 60 floor tower above it (most malls are underground in Japan.) We paid 640 yen to take a elevator to the observation deck on the 60th floor. The elevator went dark when you went up, and lights lit up inside to simulate a night sky. A panel shows how fast you go, and the top speed is about 600 meters a minute. If you are from the US, trust me, thats fast for an elevator.

The view from the top was incredible, and the deck was 360 degrees around the building. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen Gleaming the Cube. Nao and I stayed on the deck for almost 2 hours and watched night fall. Going from day time to night time was amazing, as all the lights went on in Tokyo. If you ever want a girl to get weak in the knees for you, just take her to the 60th floor of Sunshine City.

We left about 6:30 and Nao went to go meet up with a high school friend. I stopped by the Studio Ghibli store on my way home and picked up some picture books from the movies Howl's Moving Castle and My Neighbour, Totoro. They may just be kid's books, but I still get an enormous sense of self satisfaction everytime I can correctly translate a page. These movies are bigger than Disney here, so if you want to know what Japanese animation is like, rent a Studio Ghibli film (just google it for the complete list, Spirited Away is my favorite.)

It's 12:47 AM and tomorrow I have my speaking group at school, which means I have to wake up at 9 AM.

Its time to hit the small pellet filled cloth sack.
~karl